Seduced by a Pirate Read Online Free PDF Page B

servants, upon meeting them for the first time.”
    The pirate’s hand enveloped hers, and his eyes crinkled as he smiled at her. “Lady Barry,” he said, “my name is Sharkton, though I am usually called Shark.”
    “Shark!” Colin cried with delight from across the courtyard.
    Shark grinned over at him. “Aye, it’s a pirate’s name, my lad.”
    The other man had risen, despite what she said. “Take Colin down to the lake, Shark,” he said. Although his voice was mild, a strand of tension shot through Phoebe: she was suddenly edgily aware that she was about to be left alone with him.
    She walked across to her son, bent down, and tapped his nose. “Now remember, you’re the host. What would your guest like to see?”
    “Not Lyddie,” Colin said. “She might faint.” He trotted over, reached up for Shark’s hand, and led him away.
    Phoebe turned back, feeling strangely unsettled. The blond man was still standing; she gave him a cool smile and held out her hand. “I am Lady Barry,” she said, pulling out of thin air the title that she never used. But there were times when it was wise to stand on precedence, and this was one of them.
    “Lady Barry,” he said. He leaned his cane against the table and took her hand in his, but he did not shake it. Or kiss it. He wasn’t of the gentry, then, for all the magnificence of his coat.
    His hand was even bigger than Shark’s. She could feel calluses on his fingertips, and saw a white scar that snaked across the back of his hand.
    In that instant, she was struck by a realization so unnerving that she felt quite unsteady.
    She withdrew her hand and sank into a chair, her eyes fixed on his. Blue eyes. Terribly blue. She remembered those eyes, but they had belonged to a different man.
    “You were short, ” she whispered, disbelief paralyzing her.
    “Not any longer.”
    There was a moment of silence as they stared at each other.
    Then: “Sir Griffin Barry at your service. —Your husband,” he added, when she didn’t say a single word.
    She couldn’t.

 
    S IX
    G riffin was in the grip of a feeling so overwhelming that he didn’t have a name for it. He was looking at his wife .
    The word hadn’t meant anything to him for years. Nor had it meant anything to her, apparently, given that he had just met his heir.
    Anger burned in his chest at the idea that another man had touched his wife. Still, during all those long years abroad, he hadn’t sired any children because he knew the ins and outs of a French letter. Poppy almost certainly didn’t. And he couldn’t say that he left her satisfied. So . . .
    “Colin’s father,” he began, and despite himself his voice emerged from his chest like the slam of a hammer on metal. “Where is he?”
    For the last decade men had jumped when he’d raised his voice. But the lovely woman seated before him? She didn’t even twitch. “He is dead,” she said, after a moment had stretched to an eternity.
    “Do you have other children?” He could have choked on the question. He’d been so careful with his seed, and all the time his wife was . . . well.
    “Two,” she replied, her eyes direct and unafraid.
    Damn, but she was a pirate’s bride. There wasn’t even the smallest flare of shame in her eyes. Not even a twinge.
    “You must have thought that I was never coming back.”
    “You gave me no reason to believe otherwise. In the first decade of our marriage I asked your Mr. Pettigrew on occasion, but I must admit that I stopped asking.”
    That was fair. Logical.
    “You were gone. And I gather you were engaged in piracy, a pursuit from which I believe few men return. It appears you were successful, given the large amounts that Mr. Pettigrew deposited into the household account.”
    There wasn’t a shade of blame in her tone. His wife was outrageously pretty, with hair like bright butter. But she had a backbone of steel.
    “I’ve been a privateer for the past seven years,” he said. “My ship flew the